Overview
- Officials confirmed Thursday that the Basque Government granted third-degree status to ETA convicts Juan Carlos Iglesias Chouzas, known as Gadafi, and Eneko Gogeaskoetxea.
- Third degree in Spain is a semi-liberty regime that allows supervised outings and step-by-step reintegration rather than full release.
- In October 2025, a similar grant to Gadafi was appealed by the Public Prosecutor and then revoked by a prison-surveillance judge, highlighting ongoing judicial oversight of these decisions.
- Gadafi was convicted for the 1991 killing of two-year-old Fabio Moreno in Erandio and is held responsible for about 20 murders with sentences totaling more than a thousand years.
- The victims’ group Covite condemned the new grants as a “hidden amnesty” and said the prisoners have not shown real, public, and verifiable remorse.